Celtic Solstice - WEEK ONE!

Wow - I cannot believe that I have become a Bonnie Hunter mystery (BHM) quilt groupie!  But I am and PROUD OF IT!!!!

There is only one problem - Linda dragged me kicking and screaming (OK - so that is a bit harsh) into the BHM world, but now there are a couple of other people (Mary, Anne and maybe Helen Anne) and so now the gauntlet is down. It is one thing when you only see on the blogs what the others are doing, but when your friends are working on it  - well can we let them finish ahead of us?????    Mary will be the one to watch - I bet she is done!

Anyway - yesterday was the day to get started. I had my fabric picked, but I have been going flat out on the long arm and no chance to get too much piecing done. Since someone was renting the long arm yesterday, that gave me a chance to do some piecing.

I have to say that I got very excited when I saw we were using the Tri-Recs ruler. I LOVE THAT RULER and have made MANY Peaky and Spike units.

I started by cutting my blue

I don't even have all my fabric. I pulled what I had from my stash (OK - so I am very particular about what I use) and this gives me a chance to go shopping). But I think I got HALF the blue cut. 

One of the fabrics I used was this one. This was fabric that I used for the SECOND quilt I ever made (well once I started my quilting classes - way back in 1998 when my daughter was TWO). This was from a quilt that I made for her. It is much brighter in real life and those dinosaurs DO NOT stand out quite that much!!!!

Want a blast from the past?????

This is the dinosaur quilt that I made for M when she was two. I mean this was my SECOND quilt. I fussy cut those dinosaurs, notice what a fluke happened with the sashing (the colours lined up) AND look at the quilting..............

Stitch in the ditch!!!   ON MY - that is pretty AWFUL. But pretty funny to see what I thought stitch in the ditch was. And I did a pretty good job with the free motion in the background of those dinosaur blocks, leaving the dinosaurs UNQUILTED so they puffed up a bit. 

The quilt has definitely seen better days (and maybe I should think twice about using that fabric in Celtic Solstice as the "paint" on the fabric is wearing away!!!!    Too late - already cut and sewn in some cases. I doubt Celtic Solstice will get as much wear and tear as that dinosaur quilt did.

VOILA - first two units DONE!!!!!

In keeping with the spirit of Bonnie Hunter, I am trying to do this STRICTLY as enders and leaders. That is what I did last year with Easy Street. And I managed to get all the units sewn together as enders and leaders. Yes - I was a bit behind all the way through, but I'm OK with that. This is supposed to be a fun project, is NOT a race and like I said - it has more meaning doing it as enders and leaders. 

And these are the units I have finished so far (all as enders and leaders - in just one afternoon of sewing) and I have MANY more days of sewing before Christmas. 

So what was I working on while I did Celtic Solstice as enders and leaders????   I was trying to get my flannel quilt done.

Got the two halves sewn together, got the first border on and half of the outer border - DONE. 

But NOT before I had several "incidents" with this quilt. I wanted to add the polka dot as the inner border. But when I grabbed my piece of fabric, there didn't seem to be enough. Now that is unusual that I goof up like that (just kidding - I goof up all the time!!!).  Anyway - I decided to make the border a bit smaller and cut eight strips that were 1 1/2" wide instead of 2 1/2".

WAIT A MINUTE - where is the green outside border????   When I started looking, I found it with a bunch of flannel that I had washed. OH OH - here is the rest of the dot fabric. So I cut NEW strips that were 2 1/2" wide - the 1 1/2" strips can be used for another project.

BUT when I went to sew them together (I had cut a couple of 2 1/2" pieces from the original piece of polka dot fabric), I noticed that they were NOT the same colour.

Notice the top strip is slightly BLUER than the one on the left

OH CRUD - when I washed the fabric, it was with a dark blue and the stupid blue fabric ran!!!!!   Oh well - not going to change it. The bluish polka dots got sewn on the quilt. And the outside green got sewn on - well almost.


The worst part of all this?  I was trying to use up that flannel and I think I still have enough to make two if not three quilts from the "scraps".   More on that in the next couple of days.

As far as organizing - I got my categories laid out - there are a lot. Now I have to sort the shelves, the tables and the loose stuff on the floor of the storage room and from there - I will pick what NEEDS to be done in 2014 and put it on the shelf. Then the job of finding a spot for the rest of the stuff!!!


On that note - I am out of here - loads of work to do today.


Have a great day!!!!!!!!!!!